Sa’ar: No recollection of decision being made to strike Iran, open to diplomatic path

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says he is unaware of an Israeli decision to launch a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and would accept a diplomatic solution that effectively halts Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, in an interview for The Telegraph.

“I am a member of the security cabinet, and all the inner forums, and I don’t remember such a decision,” says Sa’ar, responding to a question about last week’s New York Times report that Israel had planned to attack Iran as early as May, before US President Donald Trump blocked the proposed strike to instead pursue nuclear talks with Iran.

“I don’t think that such a decision was made. But Israel is committed to the objective of preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons. If that objective can be achieved by a diplomatic path, it is acceptable,” says the foreign minister.

Sa’ar also warns about offering Iran too much trust, saying, “Iran always mocked its international obligations. I’m not excluding the option that they will try to get some partial agreements, to avoid getting to the necessary solution.”

“We are speaking directly with the Americans. We’re also speaking with European friends. I think we all have the same objective. Iran is in a position of relative weakness, and this should be used to achieve the objective, and not to let Iran escape for the sake of convenience, to waste time until the circumstances change,” the foreign minister adds.

In response to the Times story on Thursday, a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office touted his “countless” actions against Iran’s nuclear program, but did not deny that Trump had blocked a strike on the Islamic Republic.

For his part, Trump said Thursday he was in no rush to greenlight strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but that he hadn’t “waved off” a planned Israeli attack.

Despite Washington’s current reluctance, Israel has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter told Reuters yesterday,

Over the past months, Israel has proposed to the Trump administration a series of options to attack Iran’s facilities, including some with late spring and summer timelines, the sources said.

Meanwhile, a Trump administration official told The Times of Israel that “very good progress” had been made during a second round of nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran in Rome yesterday.

Iran’s foreign minister said the two sides, which plan to continue talks next Saturday, agreed to begin drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal.